Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear. This month we are looking at some of the fears in our lives that can hold us back from achieving our dreams. Those little voices that tell us that we aren’t good enough, that change is bad, that we should be afraid of the unknown, that we are not enough. Since each one of our fears is totally unique to us I will be talking about some of the hurdles that personally hold me back and what I do to push them back. While they may not be applicable to everyone I hope you can see that what we fear can be overcome.
It was quiet, the sun had yet to rise, heck the birds weren’t even up yet. I placed the last of my things inside the cab of the truck and shut the door. With a roar the Uhaul fired up, the birds were probably awake now, along with every dog and cat within two blocks. With a heavy heart I slowly trundled around the cul-de-sac at the end of the lane and headed for North Carolina, leaving my home, my friends and all I had known in Georgia behind. Usually when you move across two states you have a reason, a job, a love, a family. I had none of that waiting for me in North Carolina, what I would do, where I was going was one big question mark. I was heading off into the unknown.
I am a woman who prides herself on knowing what comes next. The unknown is something I feel like I need to eliminate entirely from my life. I am a planner, a knower of things. I make decisions usually with a raft of reviews or papers in my hand just to make sure that I don’t choose poorly. I use information to pick out a new dress, or a new book. I can buy that new TV because I have read every review and compared it to thirty-two other models exactly like it. Almost everything I spend time or money on has some sort of research attached. Even my faith, early on, was shaped by knowing things; doubts were a sign of weakness, even as they lingered for years. Having information makes me feel confident and secure. It divides the world into black and white. Good and bad. Even still, I never found a way to eliminate the unknown, no matter how hard I tried. At the end of the day having information did nothing to help me relax or make big life decisions like moving to another city. It wouldn’t help me uncover the truth about why being a guy made me feel so horribly uncomfortable. Knowing things didn’t help me sleep at night in a world that often made no sense.
This is not a post railing against knowledge, I would encourage everyone to learn more about themselves and the world around us. Still, every tool can be used inappropriately, and knowledge used to fend off the unknown can quickly become a crutch. In a similar way to our previous conversation on change, facing the unknown is unsettling. We don’t know what we don’t know and that is frightening. Our fear can drive us into a cycle of gathering more and more knowledge until we are paralyzed with inaction. At some point you have to stop thinking with your head and start thinking with you heart.
On the surface my move to North Carolina made no sense. It seemed like I was giving everything up on a whim. I knew that my life style in Atlanta was draining me, working two jobs, getting very little sleep and still just meeting life’s demands. I didn’t have money to travel, to see friends and family, or just to not work for a week. I wasn’t thriving and it was strangling me. I saw in Raleigh a chance to get on my own two feet without sacrificing my health and wellbeing. I saw a chance to emotionally reconnect with a faith I had cherished but had reduced to just knowledge, facts, and figures. None of that can be put into a spreadsheet or found in a peer-reviewed journal. I saw an opportunity for growth. So, I leapt.
Our lives are full of decisions that need to be made when we have little to no information. Not everything is a TV or kitchen appliance that is rated and ranked. We cannot divide everything into good or bad, red or blue, male or female. There will always be things in-between, questions, issues, choices that no knowledge can bridge. We walk the path life gives us one day at a time, never knowing what is around the next bend. That morning as I left Georgia I was scared. A hundred questions and a hundred doubts crowded my mind. These are questions that have answers only in hindsight. In our lives we will come across questions that can only be felt out, questions that rely on heart more than knowledge. The unknown is scary and wild, a place where giants roam. We have to be willing to let go of what we know to walk those untamed lands, trusting in our skills and our hearts to guide us through.